Message(s) Relayed
by LoquaciousQuark
Summary: "Commander, you've received a new message at your private terminal." Prompt fics from Tumblr, mostly featuring Shepard/Garrus with a smattering of Shepard/Thane and gen.
1. Chapter 1

**Characters/Pairing:** Shakarian  
 **Rating:** T  
 **Word Count:** 455  
 **Prompt:** from jadesabre301, for the kiss meme, in which the prompter chooses the location of the kiss: "Shepard-to-Garrus, stomach kiss"

 **Notes:** Originally written in 2013.

—

"It's amazing," Shepard tells him frankly, sitting astride his hips. His thumbs stroke up her naked sides and down them again, head cocked on her pillow in something like inquisitiveness.

"Who, me?" He raises his eyebrows. "Go on."

"It's just—" She frames his hips with her hands, her fingertips nearly touching the bedclothes on either side of his waist. "You know, women on Earth used to wear these contraptions around their waists. Corsets. They were made out of rigid straps and worn tight as they could get them, and as they shrank they got even tighter. All so they could have waists that looked like this."

"You're saying I look like an Earth woman."

"I'm saying if you'd been in Western Europe about three hundred years ago, the fashion magazines would have been all over you for your secret." She pauses. "Well. After they were finished screaming at the sight of you."

Garrus hums, a dual-toned thing that thrums through the air between them. "I always knew I was the paragon of attractiveness somewhere, to someone. I guess I was just hoping it would be something a little more contemporary."

Shepard rolls her eyes, her fingers sliding up from his hips across his stomach, his chest. "That's some pretty transparent fishing, Garrus."

"What can I say? Your opinion matters to me, Shepard."

His voice is light, teasing, but Shepard isn't dense enough to miss the little thread of sincerity weaving through it, and after a moment she bends down and presses her lips to his stomach, just below the rise of his ribs. "It's a very nice waist," she murmurs, grinning as she feels him suck in a breath, as she feathers her fingers up and down his sides in a mimicry of his earlier motions. "In fact, it's my very favorite waist ever."

"Now you're just being patronizing," he grumbles, but Shepard can hear the edge creeping into his voice beneath it, can feel the rising… _interest_ elsewhere as his hands grip her waist a little tighter. "I can go talk to Javik if I want someone scorning my every word."

"But _I_ do it with love," Shepard points out, and isn't entirely surprised when he flips them both on the bed in one smooth motion. "Besides," she adds, grinning up at him, "I don't think Javik quite understands the nuances of human fashion."

"Not yet," Garrus says, his hand settling in the crook of her knee as her leg comes up around his narrow, sturdy waist. "But if I see him wandering the decks of the _Normandy_ in a—what was it?"

"Corset."

"I'll know who to blame."

"Who to _thank_ , you mean," Shepard points out, and laughs all the way into his kiss.

.

—

 **Characters/Pairing:** Shakarian  
 **Rating:** G  
 **Word Count:** 392  
 **Prompt:** from mystery-moose: "Shepard, Garrus, talking about nothing important."

 **Notes:** Originally written in 2013.

—

"That's stupid."

"No, it's not."

"It _is._ "

"If you'd watch it, you'd understand. It was an intergalactic _phenomenon_ , Shepard."

"It's a bunch of asari cat…pet-things dancing in a circle around a rainbow. It's stupid."

Garrus laughs, hard enough she can feel the rumble of it through both his thigh and the pillow she's got pressed against it. She would just have her head in his lap, but turians don't exactly come with extra padding, and the pillows on Anderson's couches— _her_ couches, she reminds herself—are too comfortable to go to waste. She looks up at him, his mandibles flaring in amusement as he shakes his head. "How would you know if you haven't watched it?"

"I just know."

"Mm. She just knows."

"I _do_ ," she insists without much fight, and changes the channel. It's some asari melodrama, mid-reveal that the pregnant asari onscreen has spontaneously developed amnesia and has no idea who the father of her child is. The other asari in the room look utterly horrified, suspicious, and gleeful at once. "I don't know why you're pushing this so hard."

Garrus plucks the remote from her hand, flicking through a biotiball tournament, an elcor cooking show ("With relish: Add relish,"), and a quarian children's show featuring a large number of handmade puppets. "And I don't know why you're resisting. A guy might think you have something against asari…cat…pet-things."

Shepard grins again, twisting on her side until she can see the screen better. She's never had much of an interest in quarian children's programming, but anything is better than an inane holo gone viral. Garrus's hand comes to rest on her waist; she blows out a breath and adjusts her pillow against his leg, listening to the rumble of his breathing, to the distant, muted whirring of skycars outside the apartment's impossible windows. On the screen, a puppet of a quarian boy is cheerfully describing the color orange to a six-legged creature with five eyes.

"Stupid," she murmurs again, wondering about Rannoch, thinking of Legion, of hope and death and the way lives wasted themselves so easily, and she blows out a breath. "Fine. Show me the vid."

"Okay," Garrus says, and she can _hear_ his smile; but he bends closer to show her his omnitool's screen, and she can't deny that as the holo comes to a close, she laughs.

.

—

 **Characters/Pairing:** Shakarian  
 **Rating:** G  
 **Word Count:** 318  
 **Prompt:** from maybethings, for the first-sentence meme, in which the prompter writes the first sentence of the fill: "Didn't think I'd find you here."

 **Notes:** Originally written in January of 2015.

—

"Didn't think I'd find you here."

"Didn't think I'd find _myself_ here," Shepard says ruefully, and leans back on the bench, her arms spread out along its elegant wrought-iron back. "Considering how awkward it was last time, I mean."

Garrus shrugs, coming to stand behind her. "I didn't think it was that bad."

"You didn't have to _say_ anything. You just had to stand there and look pretty."

"Devilishly handsome, you mean."

Shepard flutters a laconic hand, lips pursed. "My point's still good."

Garrus laughs, two-toned and more attractive than she'd ever admit, and uncrosses his arms to rest his palms on the back of the bench. "It was the opening of a _school_ , Shepard. Not an interrogation."

She glances again at the wide, pale brick building opposite the green, enormous glass-and-steel doors closed for the moment, framed every side by green maple trees and a lawn trimmed precisely enough to pass a military inspection. That lawn, she knows, stretches on behind the building to a state-of-the-art training facility; and before her, above the enormous doors, an expensively-lettered placard declares the place the _Shepard Preparatory School for Biotic Children_.

"That sign," she says without thinking, "probably cost more than my entire school did, growing up."

"You told me about the scholarships."

She laughs. "My one stipulation. As if I know what that means for them."

Garrus is quiet a long time, long enough for her to regret her words, but eventually his hand comes to rest on her shoulder, more comforting than anything so taloned has right to be, and she sighs. "So many kids will learn here, Shepard. It's a good thing."

She stands abruptly, circles the bench until she can hold his hand properly, feel the reassuring weight of it, the strength. "I want them to be better than me," she says, and looks up. "If that happens, then it'll be enough."

Garrus smiles, squeezes her hand. "You gave them the chance."

.

—

 **Characters/Pairing:** Shakarian  
 **Rating:** G  
 **Word Count:** 1180  
 **Prompt:** from perahn, for the same first-sentence meme: "The stars seemed further away than usual, veiled by the drifting clouds, and Shepard was glad of it."

 **Notes:** Originally written in January of 2015. Probably also of note is that my Shepard picked the Destroy ending, and anything set post-game assumes this world is in play.

—

The stars seemed further away than usual, veiled by the drifting clouds, and Shepard was glad of it.

She'd spent two years of her life staring up at stars through the window of her cabin, entirely too close for comfort and entirely impossible to close away, and as much as she loved the freedom they'd given her she didn't mind seeing them for once at their distance, or the solid, steady ground under her feet.

She was standing. That was the first victory in…quite some time, more meaningful for having no casualties, and though it'd taken an omnitool trick Tali'd taught her to kill the IV alarm—and a cane, pilfered from her stupefyingly massive pile of well-wishes, to work her way from the bed in the first place—she'd managed the ten whole steps between her hospital bed and the tiny balcony without falling once.

Of course, now that she'd made it she wished for nothing so much as a chair, but so such things went, and to distract herself she drew in a deep, clean breath. Earth air. _City_ air, faintly industrial, only the barest hint of alien smoke remaining from the Reapers' devastation. Not so long ago, barely a month and a half according to reports—but already she could make out the long, thin cranes in the glittering city laid out below her, raising the buildings that had been destroyed; the gleaming skycars arcing light through the night sky; the low and steady hum of life resuming, resurging, resilient in the face of even the most devastating threat the planet had ever seen.

She liked that. Liked more the wind over her cheeks, the unmuffled sound of vehicles and a city as much recovering as she.

God, her back ached, and her left leg, and her arm, shattered in a dozen places and held together by pins and plates while the bone weave struggled to remake her again. Pulverized, one of her doctors had said. She herself remembered very little after the explosion that had blown the Citadel apart: only twisted steel, and pain, and the threadbare shimmer of a mass effect field between her and endless stars.

Then nothing, until she'd woken, dazed from a cocktail of drugs and pain, to the sound of a turian voice—

"Shepard? Spirits, _Shepard_?"

"Out here, Garrus," she called back, stifling the gasp at the strain of turning too quickly, and watched him cross the empty hospital room with long, even strides. Half the steps it'd taken her—an eighth of the time. She longed for a decent run, and she couldn't even walk.

"Don't," he said, and even she could hear the worry. "Don't do that. I thought—don't do that again, Shepard."

"Sorry," she told him, meaning it. "I didn't know you were coming tonight. I just needed to breathe for a few minutes."

"Are you even supposed to be standing?"

Teasing, she knew—she could see the smirk—but it hit too close to home, and she sighed as he offered a bracing arm. " _Garrus_. When have I ever listened to what I was supposed to do?"

He adjusted his grip, bent his head closer until she could feel his heat, until the brilliant blue of his eyes met hers. "You're absolutely right," he drawled. "I don't know why I'm surprised. I suppose you used Tali's trick on the alarm."

"Got it in one."

"That eager to get outside, huh?"

Her smile faltered, then faded. Garrus saw it and his hand tightened; before her face could show the ache she leaned into him, letting his arm settle around her waist instead, and abandoned the cane in favor of the balustrade. "So many people died, Garrus," she said, the sound almost lost between the wind and the city. "And all I can think about is how much I hate this place."

He glanced back over their shoulders to where she knew the pile of presents sat, obscene generosity from a people so barely removed from war, this particular fraction screened and rescreened by Liara before even being admitted to the hospital. And beyond them: the determinedly inoffensive taupe walls, the little rolling table that held her fleet of medicines, and her small, segmented bed, railed on both sides to prevent her falling in the worst throes of her nightmares. She hadn't even been able to watch the news; even now all they showed were death tolls and speculation of her own actions, and to watch them—so _wrong_ , and yet she couldn't bear—

She hadn't even told Garrus.

His voice, when he spoke, was abruptly serious. "If you want to go home, Shepard, say the word."

"The word," she said flatly, but the flutter of his mandibles against her temple told her the joke had translated. "Chakwas would kill me. Miranda would kill me. Tali would be disappointed in me, which would be even worse."

He laughed again, and she turned her face into his warm, hide-soft neck. "Besides," she added more quietly, "I don't even know where home _is._ Not with _Normandy_ still off on recon and rescue."

"Wherever you want it to be."

"What if," she started, and continued only because she was _tired_ , and grieving and in pain, and because Garrus of all people knew her best, "What if that's—where you are?"

He took an odd breath and his arm tightened against her. For a moment her heart sank—then he _smiled,_ wide enough she could feel it in his voice, and he said, "Yeah, Shepard. Def—"

 _"Don't_ say definitely."

Garrus laughed again, turned her in his arms until she could see him properly, his visor dim, the green and blue and red and gold of the city lights flickering gently over his plates, dulling the markings until all she could make out was the glint in his eye and his wide, toothy grin. "What do you want me to say, then?"

She swallowed, gripped his hand. Maddening, that she could face a Reaper on foot without flinching, but this should make her palms sweat. "Say yes."

"Commander," he said drily, lifting a brow-plate, and she groaned.

 _"Garrus."_

 _"Shepard_ ," he parroted in the same tone, then pretended to flinch at her thump to his chest. "Fine. _Daxa_. Yes."

"What did that mean?"

"Well, it's usually a word used to indicate assent, or agreement, or—"

"That's not what I—Garrus," she said, startled, and a sudden rush of warmth began to pool in her stomach, chasing away the smaller aches behind something else, something strong and floating. "Well. Okay, then."

"Okay," he said, and cupped her jaw to bring her forehead to his own. She breathed, in and out; then she tipped her chin until her mouth met his, no longer alien, familiar as her heartbeat. His hands, too, and his warmth, and the way he hummed when she scratched his back. How much more could she learn? How much more, now that there was a _chance—_

The city had begun again; the proof of it surrounded her. And above her, stars…

It was time, she thought, that she did the same.

"Yes?" Garrus murmured against her mouth, and Shepard laughed.

" _Definitely._ "


	2. Chapter 2

**Characters/Pairing:** Shakarian, Ashley  
 **Rating:** T  
 **Word Count:** 2100  
 **Prompt:** from marigoldfaucet, for the AU meme: "Shakarian. Space Western."

 **Notes:** Originally written in January of 2014. Also, I read like six wikis and restarted this at least four times and yet, somehow, I'm still not entirely sure what a space western is. I hope you enjoy it anyway!

—

"For the record," Garrus says casually, wiping down the inside of a hopelessly-stained glass, "out of all your plans over the years, this is definitely not my favorite."

Shepard snorts and leans one elbow on the bar, vaguely unsettled by the sticky glaze that coats the dented wood from end to end. "Not even top five?"

"Not a chance. _Maybe_ top eight. Just under the wind farm fight on Intai'sei; better than the thing on Talis Fia where you made me crawl through the vents of that industrial manufacturing plant."

"You said you wanted to try something new."

"Turians aren't made for vents, Shepard. Especially not volus-sized vents. _Especially_ when those vents make me smell like enviro-suit liner for two weeks."

Shepard laughs and pulls her drink free from the sticky bar, downing most of it to cover the brush of her fingers over the Carnifex at her hip. She'd wanted to bring the Wraith, but Liara had said that even the Terminus Systems tended to look askance at casual world-hoppers with heavy weaponry. "ETA?" she asks, sliding her glass—skipping, really—across the bar to Garrus's hip.

He tops her off from a bottle of something gold and strong-smelling and glances at the door over her shoulder. "Five minutes, tops. Vega says they're wandering down the street in a drunken pack."

"Ash?"

" _Nothing yet, Shepard._ " Her voice is thin through the omnitool distortion; behind it, Shepard can hear the rhythmic creaking of the ancient mass effect field generators, constantly filtering the worst of the baking planet's dust from the air. " _Wherever their hideout is, they're not going anywhere near it right now._ "

"Copy. Stick close, but don't blow your cover yet."

" _Right. I'll wait for you to do that for me._ "

"See you soon," Shepard says, grinning, and from the other end of the bar, Garrus shakes his head.

So. Waiting. Shepard's not great at waiting. To kill time, she checks the entrances and exits again, just to be sure. It's not a big place, not out here on the edge of civilization in a system that's barely been mapped, let alone fortified with anything approaching law enforcement—which is why they're here, after all, trying to track down the gang that had somehow managed to knock a hole the size of the Mako in the Alliance's Crucible funds account two weeks ago.

Just a handful of narrow booths along one wall, a few round wooden tables by the front door, one exit in the rear, so little-used the console has stuck flickering between orange and green. No lights inside, the owners too cheap to pay for the electricity during the day, not with two suns above the horizon fourteen hours at a time. No customers, either; just a wheezing radio in one corner, Garrus behind the bar where he's been the last ten days, visor dimmed, the steel-threaded patina on the windows behind him draping slats of dusty sunlight across his shoulders—and her, Shepard, the idiot tourist who doesn't know the Anhur Syndicate prefers this bar to be kept private in the afternoons.

"Incoming," Garrus murmurs, and Shepard deliberately curls both hands around her glass, bare fingers in plain sight atop the sticky oak veneer. Uncomfortably far from the Carnifex hidden under her leather jacket—but that's what Ash is for, she reminds herself, perched above the shopfront across the street with a Widow and a clear line of sight to Shepard's back.

The door whines open behind her, gears groaning at decades of grit. It brings with it a hot, sun-choked wind and a whirl of dust that sends the dim light swirling, and Shepard blows out a long, slow breath. Doesn't move, though, not even at the sound of too many booted feet stomping in at her back, not even at the half-dozen laughing voices that fall still at her presence. In _their_ bar.

Not yet.

Someone laughs, and a heavy body thumps onto the high barstool at her right. "Hey," says a multi-toned voice, thick with an arrogant amusement, and Shepard glances up.

Batarian. Smiling. Left canine implanted with small silver jewel; heavily modded Phalanx on his hip; expensive armor for the ass-end of the Terminus Systems, especially with sockets for blades at his shoulders and elbows. Black emblem on the chest, a circle broken by two lines. Anhur Syndicate's mark.

"You want something?" Shepard says, lifting an eyebrow, and she takes a sip from her glass.

"Yeah," says someone else, and a tall, slender human woman in green and grey slides into the seat on her left. "The answer to why you're in our bar, lady."

The rest of the group disperses quietly, seating themselves at the wooden bar, at the scarred round tables between her and the door. Eight, she counts, including the batarian who'd spoken first, most with old-fashioned bandannas around their necks to protect against the dust; Garrus nods at the two or three who approach him, taking their empty bottles, replacing them with new ones glittering blue and gold on the shelves beneath the broad windows. Four batarians. Three turians, the one human. All armed. Not the best odds they've ever had, and if the shift of Garrus's shoulders is any indication, she's not the only one thinking it.

Shepard lifts her glass to the woman, raising her eyebrows. _Leave the rifle where it is, Garrus._ "Just having a quiet drink. Didn't think that was a crime."

"I think you picked a bad place to do it."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," says the batarian, slinging his arm over her stool's low back, leaning close enough she can count the facets in the gem on his tooth. Ten, as it happens. "Iisi Tau's not known for sightseeing."

A lazy curl of anticipation twists up from her stomach, settling high behind her ribs. Garrus saunters over to her end of the bar, white rag tossed over one shoulder, an oddly-shaped silver bottle in one hand. "You want the usual, Pix?"

The batarian nods, winking two eyes at Shepard before turning to Garrus. "Yeah. And tell me why she's here, while you're at it."

He shrugs as he sets the bottle on the bar, faint foul-smelling mist wafting from its iced mouth. "She came in about an hour before you did and refused to leave. Said she was…waiting for someone."

"And you let her stay?"

Garrus looks at her, then, blue eyes distant and cold as they rake over her face, her jacket, her bare hands around her emptying glass. One mandible flicks out dismissively. "I thought you could take care of her if you had to."

Shepard's mouth tightens, annoyance not entirely feigned. "I didn't ask for the lip, turian. I just wanted a drink. And a little privacy."

His mandible flicks out again, and Shepard can practically hear his voice in her head. _Turians don't have lips, Shepard_ —but Pix has his arm on the back of her chair again, and this time he's holding his gun to her spine. The bar has gone silent; neither he nor the woman in green is smiling now. "Ten seconds, human," he says, voice low. "Or we show you what happens to unwelcome guests on Iisi Tau."

" _I've got a shot._ " Ash's voice, quiet in her ear, and the tense lines of Garrus's neck ease an infinitesimal amount.

Shepard straightens in her chair, facing the batarian straight-on. "No need for threats, people. This is just a friendly conversation here, isn't it?" The mouth of the Phalanx digs into her back, treacherously near the butt of the Carnifex; hurriedly, Shepard adds, "I heard of some…business opportunities here. For—enterprising individuals. Individuals who have skills you need."

"Talk faster."

"I want in."

"Nothing to be in on."

"Bullshit," Shepard says, a faint smirk twitching at her lips, and the gem on Pix's tooth abruptly gleams orange as her omni-blade's tip touches his throat.

The batarian glances down, four eyes going cross-eyed a moment; then he grins, wide and toothy, and the pressure of the Phalanx lessens. "A friendly conversation, human."

"I thought so," Shepard says, her smile just as hard, and then her earpiece buzzes with the crackle of Ash's comm.

 _"Incoming, Shepard! Six bogeys on foot, two in a—oh, damn, look at what they did to that skycar. That beautiful thing's got to fly like you wouldn't believe. If Vega doesn't destroy it I want—uh. That is, ETA ninety seconds. Sorry."_

Suddenly, the dust-thick air of the bar fills with the whirs and whines of weaponry coming to the ready; the Phalanx is at her back again, and Shepard turns to see a dozen weapons leveled at her heart. All with illegal mods, of course—though she does find herself surprised by the shotgun with _three_ separate blades bolted to its muzzle.

"You brought friends," says Pix, lowering his hand from his own comlink.

Outside, dirt kicks up in a fifteen-foot whirlwind as a skycar pulls to a careless stop in front of the rundown bar. "So did you," Shepard replies evenly. The base of her skull is tingling with adrenaline, with the wild rush of impending battle. Garrus's eyes are burning into her temple; she tips her head and sees him step backwards, out of her line of sight, to the low shelf by the broken back door where his rifle is hidden. Not that this is the best room for snipers, with its close walls and peeling paint and too-crowded tables—but that's the point, after all, to persuade Pix, or to let Pix get free, to let him lead them all to the headquarters of the Anhur Syndicate via the tracker she's just hidden in his collar.

It's surviving until then that's the tricky part.

"You really want to do this?" Shepard asks Pix, sliding carefully from the chair, letting her hand brush against the pistol beneath her jacket. Her skin is nearly vibrating, sharp contrast to the lazy dust motes glittering around the Phalanx's mouth. How Garrus can _complain_ about this— "You _really_ want to blow a hole in my head before your boss gets a chance to see what I can do?"

His eyes flicker. Just a second, just a half-glance to the door—

Just loud enough for the comms to pick up, Garrus murmurs, "Covered."

That's all she needs. Shepard abandons Pix and strides forward, turning her back to the roomful of cocked weapons, ignoring Pix scrambling after her to the sounds of breaking bottles, trusting everything to the bartender in the corner, her turian in bright blue with a four-and-a-half foot sniper rifle that no one has bothered to watch vanish into the shadows. He says she's safe. That's enough.

" _Hey_!" Pix shouts, but she's already at the door—and there is the turian from the skycar to meet her, not over-tall but impossibly broad-shouldered in silhouette, the bright noon suns behind him, dressed in grey with the black, slashed circle on his shoulder and turians and batarians alike at his flank. He has no colony markings.

"Trellix Epos," Liara says in her ear. "Shepard, he's the leader of the Anhur Syndicate."

"Do I even want to know how you know that?" Garrus mutters, and Shepard sees a red bead of light flick over the turian's heart for the briefest instant. _Covered._

"The tracker I gave Shepard may have had a small camera installed as well."

" _Why am I not surprised?"_ Ashley says from the rooftop, voice wry, and Shepard puts her hands on her hips. She can't stop her grin; she can barely keep from bouncing on her toes, from leaking biotic-blue flickers of light from her fingers.

"I hear you've been looking for me," Trellix Epos says, subharmonics dangerous enough that even she can hear them. His eyes flick to Garrus in the corner and back again; his smile is all teeth.

"Yeah," says Shepard, and pulls her Carnifex at last, resting it at her hip, promise and not yet threat. It doesn't matter how this conversation turns out, not anymore; she's got Ashley on the roof and Liara in her ear and Garrus at her back, and nothing else matters, nothing, nothing. _Covered, Shepard._ "You and me—let's dance."


	3. Chapter 3

**AN:** This chapter contains the smattering of Shepard/Thane I mentioned, as well as the two Wrex-centric fills I have.

* * *

 **Characters/Pairing:** Shepard/Thane  
 **Rating:** K  
 **Word Count:** 540  
 **Prompt:** from jadesabre301, for the kiss meme: "Shepard/Thane, gentle peck."

 **Notes:** Originally written in August of 2013.

—

Every second is precious when you're living on borrowed time. Shepard knows this, has lived it every damned day since she woke up on a cold steel table with Miranda's voice ringing in her ears telling her to _hurry, hurry, hurry_. So she'd _hurried_ , and never stopped, run right to the black holes at the edge of the world and fought death there, and when she was finished she'd hurried right back to Earth and a court-martial and six _months_ of house arrest in a tiny military-issued apartment with a significant lack of both unmonitored communications and _Thane._

She's living on borrowed time. So is he, from the wrong end of death, and every day she sits in this grey building under a grey sky is another wasted memory they could have been sharing together. He'd told her not to be bitter, in one of the last moments they'd had together, and not to feel guilty for allowing him to go—but it's so _hard_ when she knows, she _knows_ he's out there somewhere being calm and steady and a guiding force for Kolyat, and all she wants is to feel his cool skin under her fingertips and hear his voice like a rumbling storm calling her _siha_ and giving her a purpose besides waiting on an interminable bureaucracy to make up their collective minds. She's not pining—Shepard doesn't pine—but God, she misses him.

She just—Shepard pushes to her feet, wandering through the apartment's tiny hallway to the tinier living room with the miniscule window overlooking Vancouver. It's not a great part of the city—not bad, but not great—and the weather's not the best it's ever been, and even so she knows that his dry humor could have made even this mediocre view a shimmering vista. Or maybe he'd have just looked at her with those impenetrable black eyes and asked her a question without words and they'd have gone somewhere without any windows instead. Either way, she wouldn't be stuck here like this, missing him, missing a purpose, caught up in regret and the inexorable ticking-away of seconds she can't get back.

She just wants _time_.

That's really the problem, she thinks, resting her forehead against the window. She just wants a world where she doesn't have to fear the passing of days, where tomorrow doesn't bring Reapers or destruction or one more step towards death for the man she loves. She wants to be able to sit on a couch with Thane's arm around her and watch a stupid vid without worrying about whether it's the best way to spend what little time they have. She wants to give him a quick peck on the mouth as she leaves for the day because there isn't a rush, because she knows he'll be there when she gets back. She wants—stupid arguments, and make-up sex, and sleepy sunlit mornings with no particular reason for either of them to get out of bed.

But she can't change Kepral's syndrome and she can't change time's march, so instead she's left with what she has: herself, and six months, and a gun.

Fine. That's all she needs. For Thane, she'll change the _world_.

.

—

 **Characters/Pairing:** Shepard/Thane  
 **Rating:** K  
 **Word Count:** 555  
 **Prompt:** from anonymous, for the AU meme: "Thane/Shepard. Dragon Age AU? 8D"

 **Notes:** Originally written in January of 2014.

—

The first clue that she's not alone is the arrow in the jaguar's head.

It's a clean kill, the shaft square between its eyes straight and well made, but the bright green fletching is fresh and tied with new-spun string and the cat itself still warm, and Shepard palms a dagger in both hands as she pushes up from her crouch. There has been no word of a new tribe in this part of the Seheron jungles, but Shepard knows that means nothing when her Tevinter employers can't even hold what borders they still keep against the qunari.

Then—a rustling in the branches above her. Shepard eases closer to the smooth-barked tree behind her, scanning the broad leaves that stretch over her for any shadow—

A man drops to the earth.

Her hand is back to throw before his feet hit the ground. No sound, even from the impact, and she tenses—but he does not move save to straighten, and she checks the blade before it leaves her hand.

Not over-tall, but thick and well-muscled, with strong arms. Dark, like the Seheron natives, with full lips and eyes so black she can see the reflections of the green jungle around them. A longbow slung across one shoulder, a quiver of green-fletched arrows on his back.

Those _eyes—_

"Pardon me," he says, and his voice is deep and low and rough. "My chase has brought me something I did not expect."

Shepard smiles, one hard bright flash—and then her arm snaps forward, and her dagger sinks to the hilt between the second jaguar's eyes.

He does not flinch at the blade's whistle, but he turns at the thump of the great cat to earth, and Shepard is gratified to see new respect in his eyes when he looks her way again. Green fletching slips between his fingers with a faint hiss as he replaces the arrow in its quiver and Shepard feels a new respect of her own—she had not seen him draw it.

Still. Those eyes. That voice. "As has mine," she says at last, and lifts an eyebrow. "I didn't know there were warriors here."

"And I did not expect a Tevinter agent to know our jungles so well."

"I'm not a Tevinter agent. I mean, not exactly. It's a temporary partnership. For a very short definition of the word 'temporary.'"

"I see," he says, and somehow she thinks—he does.

Abruptly she steps forward, knowing herself almost certainly reckless, knowing Miranda will probably Smite her across the Minanter for attempting this without her permission, but— "I'm Shepard," she says, and holds out her hand. "How would you like to save the world?"

He hesitates only a moment, then steps forward until he can grasp her hand—and that is when she sees the mark at the base of his thumb, the shiny pink scar with four long, waving lines reaching towards the inside of his wrist. A tattoo, made of a toxin deadly enough to kill a mabari in less than a minute, a man in less than five. An assassin's mark: a house she has heard of only in talk of death.

The mark of the hanar.

"My name," he says, "is Thane."

Shepard grins, his hand inexplicably warm, her heart inexplicably racing. "I've been looking for you."

.

 _—_

 **Characters/Pairing:** Wrex, Bakara  
 **Rating:** K  
 **Word Count:** 140  
 **Prompt:** from perahn, for the three-sentences-only meme: "Wrex and Bakara, Modern day."

 **Notes:** Originally written in January of 2014.

 _—_

At first glance, they seemed like the most unlikely people in the world to open the Urdnot Home for Children, a rambling ramshackle mansion on a quiet, private strip of Floridian beach. Wrex was huge, tattoos on every inch of skin that wasn't scarred; Bakara was no less inked, though she carried hers with more grace, and it was well-known that between the two of them they headed three separate biker clubs across the country, knew more than one foreign leader by name, and had enough wrestling trophies to fill a bungalow.

And yet, all it took was one sighting of them walking barefoot on the beach at dawn to know where they belonged, one child on his shoulders, another holding her hand, and a small, slender boy trailing after them, plucking seashell after seashell from the damp wave-washed sand.

.

 _—_

 **Characters/Pairing:** Shepard, Wrex  
 **Rating:** K  
 **Word Count:** 668  
 **Prompt:** from justice-turtle: "Prompt: Wrex hugging everyone on the Normandy. (SR1, SR2, ME3!SR2, I don't care. All of them! :D)"

 **Notes:** Originally written in April of 2014.

 _—_

It starts with Ash.

Shepard sees it happen, and at first it's like witnessing a car crash: hardly believing it's happening until it's already over and the survivors are picking their dazed way from the wreckage. Wrex lumbers towards her, implacable as a train, and then Ash is off the ground and in Wrex's arms and her eyes just about bulge from her head, and then she's heaped on the deck and Wrex is _laughing_ and Garrus looks like he's just swallowed the manifold to the Mako he's holding in one hand.

"Uh," Shepard says.

Ashley groans.

It takes three months for the next one. It's Liara, which surprises Shepard—she hadn't known the asari to be particularly close to Wrex—but sure enough, Liara's in the air with a squeak and her little silver boots kick up behind her, and Shepard would laugh only Liara looks actively distressed.

" _Wrex_ ," she says sternly, as if a thousand-year-old krogan mercenary hugging the daughter of a traitorous asari matriarch were something she was used to dealing with. Like a puppy pissing on the carpet, she thinks, and has a brief hysterical image of batting Wrex on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper. "Please put our friend down."

"Heh," he says, and drops her. Her sigh sounds like a deflating balloon.

It happens again and again over the years—most memorable are Thane, who just about climbs the walls like a gecko the first time Wrex tries, eventually ending up clinging to the krogan's hump like a leech—and Vega, who for all his muscles suffers the same indignity as the rest of them. Shepard doesn't understand it; it's hardly a gesture of affection, not with Wrex's hard-boiled hard-nosed stubborn refusal to acknowledge anything softer than a shotgun, but it's not exactly _unfriendly_ either.

(She's admittedly grateful he didn't pop Tali's suit when he tried it with her. Wrex's hugs are many things, but at least he isn't homicidal.)

Still, it's a bizarre quirk that she never quite manages to ask him about, until they're standing in the middle of a pile of Earth rubble that used to be a city, when the fate of an entire universe waits on the next hour to doom or save a thousand worlds at once. Maybe it's not the best time to ask; all the same, it's her last shot.

(She's learned a lot about not wasting her shots.)

So Shepard asks, and Wrex laughs, that slow _heh heh heh_ that always makes her feel like punching the krogan in the shoulder and maybe buying him a drink at the same time.

"Why?" he asks, grinning. "Jealous you never got one?"

"Maybe."

He laughs again, rolling his shoulders in the heavy krogan armor. "First time I met a human, she hugged me. Real touchy-feely type, not much of a warrior, but when I asked her she said it was a traditional greeting. I figured it might as well test strength, too—not much of a warrior if your ribs snap at a krogan hug. Plus, it keeps you soft, squishy types on your toes."

Shepard laughs, shakes her head. "Now I _am_ jealous. _"_

And then she's not entirely sure how it happens, but Wrex's arms are around her and her booted feet are coming just that much off the ground, and she's not a weak woman but his hold is _tight_ , and strong, and warmer than she expects, and how _stupid_ that this is the thing to get her right in the heart like a blind kick, as if this is the last time she'll hold a friend, as if this is the last time she'll ever feel like she's _home_.

"Human greeting," she whispers, her eyes blurry, her chin on Wrex's shoulder. "I guess it's a pretty good farewell, too."

"Yeah," Wrex says, his voice quieter than she expects.

Then he lets her go.

"So long," she says to somewhere just left of his head, and he grins, and she—doesn't look back.


	4. Chapter 4

**Characters/Pairing:** Shakarian, Miranda  
 **Rating:** K  
 **Word Count:** 2600  
 **Prompt:** from anonymous, for citrusconcerto's flower meaning meme: "Shakarian, Nettle."

 **Notes:** Post-Destroy ending. I've had this tossing around in my mind since finishing the game, but I've only just now managed to write it.

 _—_

 _Nettle: cruelty._

 _—_

He'd thought he'd be used to it by now, the waiting.

Wars like this are always full of it. Comm towers down, relays interrupted all the way to the Perseus Veil, fractured reports contradicting each other as Liara does what she can to sort them through, half her screens black and the rest choked with static.

The Citadel is destroyed. No survivors, no wreckage. Hackett is dead. No, Hackett's alive; Anderson is MIA. Huge chunks of the Citadel have landed in major cities, pulled to earth after the explosion. No—only fragments survived the atmosphere, and Hackett himself has landed in London to oversee the city's clearing. Millions of people are gone; more are still missing. Billions.

Shepard is dead. All the reports agree on that.

—

The _Normandy_ touches down on the remains of an airfield thirty-six hours after the destruction of the Reapers. Some still hang just outside Earth's pull, great clawed shadows dead and silent in open space. Downtown, husks still line the ruined streets, empty shells with black eyes and wires where their veins used to be, piled hastily to the curbs to clear the way for military vehicles and what aid transports are left for the survivors.

The city is so quiet. The last time Garrus had been here there'd been shouting and alien screaming through the gunshots, and always the vibrating bass hum of the Reapers beneath it all. Now…grey silence, disturbed only by their armored footsteps and the occasional rush of ash and mortar as some distant, precarious wall settles again.

 _Come back alive._ She'd never made him the promise. He'd understood, then.

Hackett and two majors are standing on the steps of the ruined House of Commons when they finally find him. He's worn thin, filthy with dust, but Ashley and Vega's salutes are sharp enough to make him smile even now. He leads them into the half-finished command center, apparently scrabbled together from every race's salvaged tech in the most hodgepodge array he's seen since Tali's hobby corner. One screen holds tenuous contact with a pair of asari, the ground still smoldering behind them; on another scrolls an endless readout of casualties. The entry for _Palaven_ flashes by too quickly for him to read.

A handful of turians stand clustered around a broad, cracked table topped with a flickering map of the city. Small blue dots march through the streets around larger, irregularly shaped red cordons; even as he approaches another cluster of dots peels away, heading for a new sector.

The nearest turian glances up, down again, and then stiffens to a sudden attention. The other three do the same in an odd little ripple of belated respect, and Garrus flexes his mandibles to keep back the expression. Two with Thracian markings, one from Syglar, and the woman from Parthia. He thought he'd known most of the turians stationed on Earth.

They tell him when he asks, unsure of themselves and so very young. The red marks are Reaper tech and the remains of the Citadel that crashed to the city after Shepard's beam. The blue are the reconnaissance teams, only now coordinated enough to approach the wreckage and maintain contact. They have found nothing but dead synthetics so far. No signs of indoctrination. No signs of—anything else.

The Primarch has been evacuated, the woman tells him, barely major and now the ranking officer of her small squad with so many already dead. The _Valiant_ remains in low orbit, well within distance of the few sub-FTL buoys they've managed to restore. No news from the Hierarchy they did not already know. Certainly no news from Palaven, save that more are found dead every day.

"Garrus," Tali calls, and he excuses himself to another round of salutes.

This _war_.

—

Hackett wants them to go out into the city. They are recognizable now, almost as good as Shepard, and with the news scattered and unreliable and half the world leaders missing or indoctrinated, the people of Earth are desperate for someone familiar, someone they can trust. A few local news crews have managed to restore power to their cameras and broadcasting equipment and have offered to come along, for the people.

For the publicity too, Garrus knows. Nothing more than a distraction from the endless waiting, but…he knows that cruelty well enough.

(Shepard is dead. They all agree. What is he waiting _for_?)

—

Hackett spoke to her at the end, he says, pulling Garrus aside just before they leave the command center for the grey cloud-choked daylight. She had been in pain, confused. Asking, even so, what he needed. She certainly had not had time to escape the Citadel's explosion.

He'd have wanted to know, Hackett says. If it had been him. She was a good soldier. A remarkable woman. He's sorry for Garrus's loss.

Humans. He's lived through Shepard's dying twice, now. He knows how this grief goes.

—

Three excavation sites in and they have all begun to look the same. Twisted hunks of black and silver metal, still sparking here and there with failing fields and torn cables, some spearing higher than the buildings nearby from their rubbled craters in the streets. The readout from his HUD gives him the same results every time: foreign material, temperatures well within normal limits, no signs of life. No heartbeats.

The military crews work in surprising unison given their motley makeup. Here and there biotic teams clear the large wreckage from the roads and the sides of buildings; smaller squads work with the smaller ruins, tanks and ATVs alike roped into towing duty, guns unmanned for the sake of reconstruction.

More rarely they pass hastily erected tents and prefabs, some marked with a red Earth insignia, others with the sign of the Lifebearer Brigade. Humans in green stand beside turians with yellow armbands, dispensing blankets and water to blank-eyed refugees. And yet—life sparks, just a little, when they approach with the news teams, when Ashley wraps a blanket around an older woman's shaking shoulders and listens seriously to her home's destruction; when Vega makes immediate friends with a pair of marines hoisting a cement block from a main thoroughfare to clear it.

They value the news more. Stories from the front lines, tales of small victories, the impossible revelation that the Reapers have made no movement throughout the galaxy in almost two days. Garrus knows they can't trust peace, not yet. Neither can he, really, and he runs a hand over his fringe as he turns to the newest crater behind them.

Another wrenched hunk of Citadel metal, the same as all the others, stretching from twenty feet down at the deepest point of the crater to another thirty or so feet above his head. Mass effect fields still sputter and spark at the base of the spire, the slightly off-frequency hum grating in his back teeth.

Two turians and a human dig at the outermost one, biotics and shovels mixing in their efforts to dislodge the loosest gravel. Garrus watches only a moment before keying his omnitool, and after a brief delay, Liara's voice ripples through the subspace buoy.

"How is it, Garrus?"

"Pretty much what we expected," he sighs, rubbing the back of his neck. "Communications are down. Safe travel is down. The humans are scared, and the Alliance doesn't have the resources to get the message out to all of them."

"I'll work with them. Tali informs me she has already doubled the signal strength output at the command center. I am certain she can improve it further, given a little time."

"Fine. I'm going to—" Shouting at the base of the spire. Alarm. Fear. "Hold on, Liara."

He strides to the lip of the crater, one hand pulling the rifle free out of long habit. Two of the soldiers have drawn their guns, staring at the mass effect field they've just unearthed between two twisted metal roots at the spire's base; the third has fallen back, eyes wide, human mouth still open from the cry.

"What is it?" he calls, his nerves already humming as the camera crew rushes up behind him. Too easy. Always too easy.

"Sir!" the human cries, scrambling to his feet. "There's something—there's something alive in there, something moving—"

But his HUD has already lit up like a firework, marking coordinates and temperature changes and the energy signature of functioning cybernetics. And there—unbelievably, impossibly _there—_

A heartbeat—

—

They play the footage a thousand times over the next few days, broadcast across the nearby systems on every spare surviving network. A seven-foot turian with a sniper rifle skids down the slope of a London crater, knocking the shotgun out of one turian's hand and backing the other away with a sharp order. He calls for another man, later identified as N7 candidate James Vega, who along with human Spectre Ashley Williams begins systematically dismantling the remains of a mass effect field at the base of the Citadel spire.

The camera pans to the three soldiers watching, the human with his hand over his mouth, then back in time to see Williams shimmying on her belly into the small gap left after the sudden explosion of white sparks.

She says something the mics can't pick up through the muffling metal. Then she's crawling backwards, her arms locked in a fireman's hold, and Garrus Vakarian is shouting into his omnitool even as Vega reaches down to help drag out the body. There's a glimpse of burned flesh, badly charred armor; and one perfect, focused shot of an iconic red stripe against a slate-grey sky, tapering down to a slowly curling fist.

A gloved hand closes over the camera lens, then, and a human with a heavy Indonesian accent demands the camera turn away. The audio continues a little longer, long enough to pick up the turian voice calling a name.

 _Shepard? Can you hear me?_

Then, silence.

—

Miranda arrives within hours in a stolen, dented skycar. An aide informs Garrus at the surgery observation window, stepping out again quickly at his terse order to bring her to the surgical suite below where Shepard lies, bloody and still, being prepped even now by half a dozen nurses and doctors in masks and stiff white uniforms.

Miranda's there in minutes, scrubbed clean and visibly exhausted even from his vantage point. The surgeons barely spare her a glance as she pulls up her own diagnostics on a terminal by Shepard's shaved head; they have enough to do saving Shepard's life as it is, but she's been half-synthetic for years and there's no one who knows her better, inside or out, than Miranda Lawson.

He does not argue when the head surgeon flexes her fingers and orders the shutter closed. He can't bear to move, either, even when Tali sinks down to the plastic, human-shaped chair beside him to wait. He knows they will be there for hours, that there is no guarantee that these humans have the skill—the _knowledge_ required to save her life. The Illusive Man had spent billions of credits rebuilding her the first time. They have nothing but the remains of a hospital already stretched to breaking by a war dragged on far too long.

It just—

It can't end like this. It _can't._

But all he can do is wait.

—

"She'll live," Miranda says at last, hours later, dragging the sterile cloth from her hair. The purple circles under her eyes have deepened, the lines gone heavy at the corners of her mouth, and blood has smeared across both arms and her chest.

He can hardly breathe. "You're sure."

"A few new scars. A few new implants." She makes as if to inspect her nails, pulls a face at the grime on her glove, and peels the plastic from her skin. "We won't know what it's done to her mind until she wakes up."

"But she will wake up."

Now Miranda lets out a long, slow breath, leaning back against the wall to the observation suite, both blue gloves held in one hand as she crosses her arms. White-painted walls, cheap and unsteady lighting, a tile floor in desperate need of waxing. The sun has been down for hours by now, and the tiny window shows a steady if sparse line of skycar traffic across the city's ruined skyline. The destruction is not so visible in the dark.

"Yes," Miranda says, and closes her eyes. "Somehow. Eventually."

Garrus's knees grow abruptly weak, and he puts a palm to the wall beside him as the word sinks in. _Yes._ She will—somehow—he pulls the visor from his face and rakes his talons over his fringe, staring at the floor. His heart has never hurt so badly in his life.

"She'll need at least two more surgeries," Miranda says from very far away. "Her left leg was shattered. Pulverized, as Dr. Naidu so eloquently phrased it."

"She'll walk?"

"If it were anyone else, no. But…" she trails off, lifting one shoulder in a silent, expressive gesture. "It's Shepard. What can stop her, at this point?"

—

He waits. He tries and fails to reach Palaven, sends messages to his sister and his father that remain unopened. He helps Tali get the hospital back on steady, uninterrupted power; he coordinates turian relief with Alliance forces, then leaves it to Vega's command.

Shepard lies in the hospital bed, smaller than he's ever seen her. Her skin is pale beneath the olive color, mottled with bruises and stark, darker wounds and burns still slathered with medigel; her nose has been broken again, and the right half of her face is swollen past belief. Her entire left side has been immobilized with tiny mass effect generators, the monitors beside her bed scrolling constant data on the state of her bone weave and muscle weave and the busy, damaged cybernetics.

She's breathing. That's the important thing. She's breathing, and she's alive.

So he waits.

—

On the ninth of April by the human calendar, Garrus stands at Shepard's broad window, ducking down just enough to see the little crowd gathered across the street. Word had spread despite best intentions that Shepard had been found in the wreckage, and while Liara had suppressed what she could, enough people had put the pieces together that they'd had to bring extra security to hospital grounds. Most seem to be well-wishers, bouquets and handmade cards left in a growing pile at the base of one of the streetlights. He's not stupid enough to think they all are.

He doesn't turn at the first rustle. Defense of his own, built against the feverish thrashes that have marked the last few weeks in this small, human room. The second stills him. But it's the breath, slow, steady, stronger than all the rest—

"Garrus," she sighs, and her voice is a thin, breaking thing, a shadow of herself.

It is _hers_ , and when he turns, her eyes are open.

"Garrus," she whispers again. "Is this real?"

For a moment his throat is too tight to speak. He swallows twice, and then, his subharmonics a mess of worry and old fear and nigh-unbearable relief, he says, " _Shepard_. Hey. Hi."

She blinks up at him as he approaches, still pale, still more breakable than he's ever seen her. Alive, alive, alive— "Is this _real_?" she asks again, her five fingers wrapping around his three as he bends his forehead to hers.

"Yeah," he breathes, and there's an entire world tangled up in the sound, in the space between as he pulls back to look at her face. She searches his eyes, her brow pinched in confusion and pain, but when he carefully cups her face she lets them flicker shut, leaning into the touch. Safe, after all of this.

 _Alive_.

"Shepard," he says again, grinning through the emotion knotting his voice in his throat. "I've been waiting for you."


	5. Chapter 5

**Characters/Pairing:** Shakarian  
 **Rating:** G  
 **Word Count:** 500  
 **Prompt:** _T: an obscure AU,_ _Leverage_ , from silksieve.

 **Notes:** For the minific meme on tumblr.

—

"You're doing fine, Shepard."

"I am _not doing fine!_ " she hisses into her comm, turning away from the target with a wink she's certain looks more agonized than flirty. "And quit distracting me. This is hard enough as it is, Garrus."

He hums something noncommittal, and she faintly hears the clack of his keyboard. "Bring up The Fallen. They're his favorite band."

"Stop _helping_ ," she snarls, and turns back to the mark with a smile she hopes doesn't look half as forced as it feels. "Hey, haven't I seen you somewhere before? Were you at the Fallen concert last month?"

His eyes light up, and soon enough he's leaning close enough to her the four-thousand-dollar watch he's wearing is much more at home in her clutch. She suffers through the rest of his story about the family he'd defrauded out of about forty grand in bad investments—for a villain, he's surprisingly forthcoming about his general evilness—and at the end of the night she's even able to turn down his invitation for a nightcap without either offending him right out of the con or involving even the suggestion of a fork.

All the same, she's in a terrible mood by the time she picks the lock to Liara's apartment. Garrus is the only one still up, lounging on the couch in the dark as he flicks through scanned document pages on the multi-screen setup. It's the only light in the apartment, those screens, and when he turns to look at her the reflected glint has her growling.

"Don't look at me," she says shortly, brushing at the air in front of her face as if to ward off a gnat. "Not while you're wearing that glass thing."

"It's Google Glass," he says, too patient, and she stubbornly turns her back until she hears the click of plastic against the coffee table.

"Better," she says, still annoyed, but when he lifts his arm she lets herself do what she wants anyway, which is curl up next to someone warm and indecently kind for their line of work as he flicks through more pages of text infinitely uninteresting for her taste. Someone who likes her for who she is, which is still confusing enough, instead of what she can do. She'd never minded that until she'd met him.

"You did good today," Garrus offers eventually, his voice quiet in the dark.

"Well," she says, and trails off. "Thanks for the help. With the band."

He snorts. "Their music is awful."

She laughs, letting her head fall a little more snugly against his shoulder. He's so frustratingly warm. "All the more reason to take him down, I guess."

He inclines his head, and after a moment she lets her eyes fall shut as he resumes flicking through the endless pages. She's not comfortable, she tells herself drowsily. Not here, not with someone else watching her sleep.

It's just nice to know someone has her back, that's all.

—

 **Characters/Pairing:** Shakarian  
 **Rating:** T  
 **Word Count:** 650  
 **Prompt:** _W. Waiting impatiently for something,_ from anonymous.

—

"Shepard."

If she were a dog, her ear would have flicked in irritation. Instead she rounds the ad display at the end of the concourse and spins on her heel, stubbornly ignoring the ageless asari shilling her an anti-wrinkle treatment for the third time. " _Simply apply this lotion twice a week for thirty minutes, [Commander Shepard], and you too will find your [human] skin softer than any [human] baby you've ever seen!_ "

"Shepard."

She shifts her shoulders restlessly, hits the damnably solid other end of the concourse, and turns around for the umpteenth time in the last twenty minutes. "Garrus."

"It might be the C-Sec in me, but I think you're attracting security."

"Good." She scrubs the heel of her hand over her forehead, pausing just long enough to note the nail polish Tali had (rather optimistically, she'd thought) applied earlier has already chipped off her forefinger. "Maybe they can explain why 'the best taxi service in the galaxy' is over half an hour late."

Garrus shakes his head, and at last she comes to a frustrated stop in front of the bench where he sits, his arm slung casually across its back, the neon lights of the strip behind them playing over the broad shoulders of his jacket. It's almost enough to drown out the occasional flash of a camera from the milling Saturday night crowd. "I'd believe you were worried about that if you hadn't spent the last three days complaining about this party."

She blows out a breath. "That bad?"

"Let's just say I have no doubt left."

"Damn," she says, and drops heavily to the bench beside him. "I thought I was doing pretty well."

"You were," he says easily, and they fall into a companionable silence. It's not a bad night, really; the skies over Lagos are clear tonight for one of the first times since the end of the war, and the dinner they'd had at the top of one of the skyscraping hotels had been delicious. Even Garrus had enjoyed his wet, stony-looking …food-like dish, and they've certainly had worse music at the few dextro-levo restaurants they've attempted over the months. It's just…

"I'm wearing a dress," she admits.

To his credit, Garrus's mandibles don't even twitch. "Good to see peacetime hasn't slowed you down, Shepard."

She laughs despite herself. It's a good feeling. "I can count on one hand the number of times I've worn a dress. And one finger the times it's been floor-length. I can't run in this, Garrus."

"Maybe human celebrations are different. I don't remember much running at the turian awards ceremonies I've attended over the years."

She rolls her eyes, tries and fails to cross her legs thanks to the tight navy skirt, and settles for stretching her feet out in front of the bench. At least she'd fended off the heels. She can picture herself now, tottering across the stage to receive yet another plaque for something she doesn't deserve in the first place, thanking the attendees with the same speech she's given a hundred times, then falling flat on her face down the stairs on her way out. "Teaches me not to make bets with Shadow Brokers, anyway."

He snickers, but just as he opens his mouth the whir of an aircar announces the arrival of their taxi at last, and whatever smart remark Garrus has planned is abandoned in favor of the opening door.

"Besides," he murmurs instead, his mouth entirely too close to her ear as they clamber inside, the neon lights sliding dangerously over the line of his smirk, "I know someone who'll be happy to help you out of that dress later."

Shepard grins, the driver's apologies fading behind the sharp promise in Garrus's eyes, and when he settles back into the seat she leans a little closer than strictly necessary, impatient now for an thoroughly different reason instead.


End file.
